Lin: Fuck! Susie’s got contractions. It’s so fucking painful!!

This was it. I had to get my head around it.

Chapter Nineteen

Aisha

Saturday 15^th May

I was lying in the bath when the first contraction came. I gripped the sides of the tub, my knuckles turning white as the sudden tightening pain ripped through my insides. When it passed and my breathing returned to normal, I managed to cry out for Jason.

‘Baby! I mean, Jason! I think the baby is coming early!’

He managed to help me out and wrapped a towel around my dripping wet body. He looked at me, his face pale with fear, mirroring my own. My mind buzzed with what we should be doing at this moment, and I tried to picture the notes I’d made in The Baby Group.

‘Your phone – where is it?’ I asked frantically. ‘Aren’t we meant to be timing this?’

Where was his phone? Why wasn’t he springing into action? He was just standing there.

‘I’ll find it in a sec, try to stay calm, Aish,’ he urged. ‘It’s going to be okay. Shit! It’s happening early! Where did I put my phone?’ He grabbed another towel to absorb the drips of water falling off my hair. ‘There we go. Oh my God, Aisha, can you believe it’s happening? Do you feel okay? Try to stay calm. If that’s the first contraction we could be here for a while, right?’

He had verbal diarrhoea.

‘Me stay calm? I am calm! Anyway, you’re meant to be the calm one!’

I got dressed into my new pyjamas – bought from & Other Stories especially for this moment. I’m not sure why I bought something new, and now I had them on, they felt ridiculous and not nearly as comfortable as my old clothes. The buttons barely did up, and it wasn’t easy to move around, so I waddled back to the wardrobe, took them off and tried to locate my cosy, very old, oversized grey pair. They weren’t there. I yelled for Jason again. Thankfully he found them drying on the airer that currently resided in the nursery, which had been doubling as a launderette for a while. I don’t know what I’d have done if he hadn’t. All of a sudden, it felt essential to get the smallest things right. Everything needed to be perfect and all I wanted around me right now were home comforts.

‘Slippers!’ I commanded. ‘Where are my slippers? Oh shit, another contraction’s coming and it’s stronger!’

Once the second contraction had passed, I felt a pang for Mum, wishing she was here. I longed to hear her walk up the hallway, to see her enter my bedroom and put her arms tightly around me, drawing me into her chest as she told me it was going to be okay. She’d been through labour too; she would understand this pain. Did she go into labour early with me? Had she been frightened? Surely it was impossible not to be. I wondered about her caesarean again, and whether it was an emergency C-section; and whether this was why she’d stopped at one child. Would the same thing happen to me? I could hear her voice in my head – always so comforting and soothing, telling me that everything would be okay. For a moment I could almost feel her touch on my skin. I could smell her. Feel her breath and the brush of her hair on my cheek as she embraced me. I felt tears begin to well. But I wouldn’t let them get far; there was too much to think about – like what was Jason doing right now? I looked at the bed and noticed he hadn’t even gathered up my pillows or duvet ready to take to hospital. I thought he was on top of this?